nothing ever ends || A Nightmare on Elm Street [part 1.5]
what is life but a series of sequels
You think you was gonna get away from me?
Freddy Krueger, A Nightmare on Elm Street
I can’t get no satisfaction
‘Cause I try, and I try, and I try, and I try
The Rolling Stones, ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’
If you haven’t read part one of my Nightmare essay extravaganza, I would go back and have a look at that before diving into this, because I’m really focussing on its finale here.
I feel duty-bound to mention that multiple endings were filmed for Nightmare, and the one that made it into the cinematic release was not director Wes Craven’s first choice. He originally wanted a far subtler finale. But we’re not here to talk about first choice because something something death of the author. It is interesting, though, that difficulty with endings is something that played out in the movie’s literal production.
This is not a gamer newsletter, but I’d like to take a moment to consider PC existential nightmare The Stanley Parable.
The Stanley Parable is not a horror video game, but the experience of playing it can be somewhat unsettling. Brazenly contradicting every primary teacher’s instruction about story-telling, this parable doesn’t have a strict beginning, middle and end. It ain’t Aesop. Instead, the game has multiple endings, and every time you reach one, you’re sent back to the start to find another. As you transition from conclusion number X back to the starting point, you’re faced with a loading screen that reads THE END IS NEVER THE END IS NEVER THE END IS NEVER THE END IS NEVER (etc)
That screen has always given me the creeps. It reminds me of the pronouncement Dr Manhattan gives towards the end of Watchmen: “nothing ends, Adrian. Nothing ever ends.” Both the screen and the blue superhero suggest something terrifying: a world without endings. Which means a world without resolution. The Stanley Parable and Watchmen dismiss the comforting notion that “all things must come to pass”.
Horror movies capitalise on the ill ease caused by this lack of boundary. Even when their protagonists make it to the end credits, these films often end on an ambiguous note. The killer is still be out there, and the terrible scenes we have witnessed could easily happen again. Such ambiguity isn’t purely a set-up for lucrative sequels. It is a deliberate decision to deny you, sweet viewer, relief. The threat is still out there. Remain afraid, remain very afraid.
Even if you don’t have a personal franchise-friendly villain, you’ll understand the way the past haunts the present, and the present will haunt the future. We cannot draw a line under our experiences. I still cringe at the memory of things I’ve said many years ago. This phenomenon is so common, it inspired its own Crazy Ex Girlfriend song.
Embarrassing memories aside, the slasher figure can represent something more concrete. A figure from your past, a re-emerging presence from a former relationship that refuses to rest in peace. Or the nasty consequence of a regrettable past decision.
Nightmare’s messy finale refuses to put a full stop to its terror. Its play with endlessness is connected to another primal horror: the fear of failure or, more exactly, futility.
Because – spoiler! – the baddie doesn’t die.
Earlier in Nightmare, heroine Nancy’s mother tells her daughter:
You face things
That’s your nature
That’s your gift…
But sometimes you have to turn away too.
On one level, this speech works as a lovely bit of cinematic foreshadowing. It predicts the two-part “triumph” Nancy will apparently have over her antagonist, Freddy Krueger. First, she seeks the dream-dwelling killer out and drags him into the real world (part one, facing things). Second, she tells him that he’s nothing/he’s shit/she’s taking away every bit of energy she’s given him etc and physically turns away from him (part two). Freddy disappears into a fit of 80s pixellation with a groan.
Outside this clever bit of rhetorical device (hohoho), Mrs Thomas’s words are important because they really help underscore the grimness of the film’s finale. Nancy’s facing ability is described as a “gift”. This choice of words isn't surprising: it echoes a sentiment we’ve been exposed to repeatedly. In life, we are told to face our fears or the truth. In doing so, we can be set free. Bullies, we have heard, our cowards: if you stand up to your bully, they won’t pick on you any more.
Except sometimes they will. Take Freddy, for example.
At first, we believe that Nancy has been victorious after her stand-off. She appears to be the Girl Who Has It All. The scene immediately following the confrontation appears to restore the dead to life, answering the heroine’s demands to get her mother and friends back. There’s Mrs Thomas on the front porch, and all her murdered pals alive and well in a Cadillac.
But Freddy quickly ruins Nancy’s happy-ever-after. When she joins her friends in the car, the Cadillac’s cover rolls down revealing red and green stripes. They resemble the villain’s sweater. The possessed car locks its screaming teenagers in and begins to drive them away. A remarkably blithe Mrs Thomas is smiling and waving at the kids when a familiar hand smashes thorough her front door’s window and drags her entire body through the hole.
Here lies the fear of futility. Nancy has tried to be a go-getter, to take responsibility for the difficulties facing her in life. She has failed. The force she’s contending with is simply too powerful. I’m not going to go on about Ronald Reagan or any politician’s desire for the small state again, no matter how clearly connected that it to British politics at the moment. You are free to draw any socio-economic conclusions you wish. But whatever Freddy represents to you, the film explores the possibility that a person’s best isn’t good enough. You can try to save money by shopping at Aldi or practice mindfulness but there are no guarantees it will pay off.
The final scene has a dream-like haze over it, and a piece of dialogue that’s such on-the-nose wish fulfilment it feels intentionally unreal. The dream becomes a nightmare, Freddy’s domain. At points of the movie, it can be difficult to differentiate between the waking and sleeping world. (One moment involving a tongue emerging from a phone handset really struck me on re-watch since it seems to take place, ostensibly, when Nancy is awake). Maybe the whole film is a dream. If it is, who’s to say our heroine will ever wake up? Whose to say the nightmare will ever end?
There is a poem my secondary school headteacher liked to quote during assemblies. Googling it based on a very loose recollection, I believe it was ‘What if I fall?’ by Erin Hanson. It reads:
There is a freedom waiting for you
On the breezes of the sky,
And you ask, “What if I fall?”
Oh, but my darling,
What if you fly?
Horror reverses the question order. Because horror understands exactly how scary that drop looks.
In the past, I considered Nightmare’s ending janky, and was unsurprised when I heard there was so much creative back-and-forth over the finale. But now I choose to back it, terrible special effect and all, as an exploration a kind of primal horror. It’s a non-ending that refuses to put a full stop to bad experiences. It is frustrating on a structural level but, my goodness, isn’t life sometimes frustrating on a structural level as well? We cannot always plot our way out of our problems.
As ever, I want to end on a slightly more upbeat note. And I can't think of anyone more positive that Irish author Samuel Beckett.
A friend of mine has a framed Beckett quote (at least, I hope he still does), that reads:
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.
Which is to say the beautiful thing about humanity is our ability to keep going, to fall and crawl and break and take what we get and turn it into honesty. Or to paraphrase Pete Seeger, even when you’re down and out, you ain’t beaten. They say as long as there’s life, there’s hope, and hope is the enemy of fear. Fear says things can’t get better. Hope replies actually maybe they can, and if not completely better, we can learn to live and maybe laugh with ghosts.
Fear says don’t forget, you’re here for ever.
Don’t make me tap the sign.
Hope responds not necessarily, and while you are here we could brighten up the place a bit.
Fear says the end is never the end is never the end is never. Hope tells you it ain’t over ‘til it’s over.
NEXT TIME
I'm going to park Nightmare for now (but let’s be honest, we haven’t seen the last of Freddy) and going for a Fall girl vibe with The Witch or, as I call it, The V-Vitch.